


Second Impressions

by Shayvaalski



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dragons, F/F, Female Relationships, Femslash February, LGBTQ Female Character, Original Character(s), Porn With Plot, kind of ignoring the canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mirrim is the first one to break tradition, and until the next clutch hatches everyone is fairly confident she’ll be the last. (Aside from Lord Jaxom, of course; but no one is talking about Lord Jaxom because Lord Jaxom is, to put it very gently indeed, a Problem.) After all, no girls are put to any of the eggs except the queen’s—after all it was the Southern Weyr—after all they were locked into their ways—and anyway they hadn’t actually said there was a new clutch—</p><p>And Mirrim has other things to think of, with Path bigger every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Canon references are almost entirely from memory; I'm aware there may be some issues! But that's okay. This was done for [Femslash February](http://soaringrachel.tumblr.com/post/40634004762/femslash-february).

Mirrim is the first one to break tradition, and until the next clutch hatches everyone is fairly confident she’ll be the last. (Aside from Lord Jaxom, of course; but no one is talking about Lord Jaxom because Lord Jaxom is, to put it very gently indeed, a Problem.) After all, no girls are put to any of the eggs except the queen’s—after all it was the Southern Weyr—after all they were locked into their ways—and anyway they hadn’t actually _said_ there was a new clutch—

And Mirrim has other things to think of, with Path bigger every day. She barely sleeps for the first week for worrying, although the little green assures her that the evening meal is plenty to hold her, she doesn’t have to wake them both in the middle of the night. She calms down a little after that, if only because falling asleep at the noon meal is humiliating; and the next month goes quietly enough. The other Weyrlings edge around them, but Mirrim dismisses that, grimly, as being explained by the fact that she is a good deal older than any of them. Well, except the girl with the little queen; but they don’t have much to say to each other, though Path and Irilonth seem to get along. 

The Turn turns. Path gets bigger, begins to try her wings. Mirrim has a roaring fight with the Master of Weyrlings about whether they’ll be in a fighting Wing; no one except him is surprised when she wins. The first time she and Path fly is beyond any words she has. People get used to her—to them. To watching Path chew firestone and Mirrim oil her leathers. 

And then Alaine comes. 

The fight F’lar has with the bronze rider who brings her is loud enough that most of the Weyr hears it—but Mirrim has to get the sense of it secondhand, because she is too busy staring at Alaine and the narrow-chested blue dragon crouched next to her, its huge nose tucked awkwardly into her lap. In Mirrim’s weyr. 

For a moment she is _appallingly_ jealous. 

In the next she is furious, though not at the woman; at whoever decided to put her down in the space that belongs to Path, just because, Mirrim assumes, they’re both the wrong sex to have a dragon. The blue is a little small, or maybe just young; or maybe he only looks small because he’s hunched down with his wings tucked tightly against his narrow body. It’s the dragon that makes her rein in her temper, swallow hard, and try to smile, because Mirrim can see what looks like a bruise on one flank, purplish beneath the skin, and that is intolerable.  

“Hello,” she says, and the woman’s head snaps up. Her reddish hair is cropped short as a man’s, her square-jawed face set in something between anger and grief. She tightens her arms a little around the blue’s nose. He doesn’t stir except for his eyes, which whirl a little faster, orange-yellow with anxiety. 

“They told me to stay here.” Her voice is flat and uninflected, but there’s an undertone of challenge, like she’s been moved over and over for a long time and has finally met her breaking point. “Until someone came and got me.”

“That’ll be me, I think.” Mirrim sits down on the stool she uses to reach Path’s spines, feeling Tolly rebalance himself on her shoulders. “This is my dragon’s weyr. She’s sunning herself with the others.”

The woman’s face goes tight. “The little queen is yours,” she says and it’s not a question. “My congratulations. She’s very handsome.”

“Um,” says Mirrim, thoughtful. “No. Mine’s the green, actually. The big one.” She is faintly proud of this, that Path is muscular and stocky, taller than any of the others. 

Silence, and then the woman says, very carefully, “What?”

Mirrim scrubs her knuckles against her wherhide trousers and looks at the ceiling, the opening filled with just-past-noon sunlight, anything but the other woman. “I Impressed a green dragon a bit over a Turn ago. Path. I think it’s likely that’s why you’re here, but since no one actually _told_ me, I’m not sure.” She scowls. “I call it a shame, how they’re treating you. Has he eaten?”

“Not since Southern. And he’s still growing.” She pets the blue’s nose, looking sideways up at Mirrim, and then she says, almost shyly, “His name is Sayanth. I’m Alaine.”

“Mirrim.” She stands up, brushes invisible dirt off her leathers, and offers Alaine her hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where the feeding grounds are, if he’ll carry two.”

Alaine takes it. She has, Mirrim thinks as one insinuates itself across her face, a nice smile. 

 

 

\--- 

 

There’s a level on which Mirrim wishes she and and Sayanth’s rider didn’t get along quite so well. They need, both of them, to be accepted in their Wings—because Alaine has the same kind of fight, albeit quieter, more deferential, about her right to fly her dragon that Mirrim had already won, has it and wins in—and to be accepted they can’t always be together. The only two women not on queens. Kora has gotten more distant since Irilonth filled out, and although the big gold will sometimes settle down companionably next to Path, her rider is too busy being groomed by Lessa and Ramoth. 

Mirrim keeps out of the way of Lessa and Ramoth. She’s not sure Alaine has actually ever met them, because Alaine has proved to be remarkably adept at absenting herself. Sometimes Mirrim will turn around with her mouth open to say something to find dragon and rider gone. Whether Sayanth is just remarkably soft of foot and wing, or has simply learned to go _between_ without first being in midair, Mirrim isn’t certain. And she doesn’t ask. 

But then, they don’t really talk much. There’s not much to say, and while Mirrim can talk the ear off a runner beast, Alaine tends more towards silence—though Mirrim has half an idea that there is an ongoing stream of communication between her and Sayanth. There always is, of course, between rider and dragon; but Alaine goes distant around the eyes more often than any of the boys, and her blue blinks off into space while the others doze on the heights. 

Path tells Mirrim, privately, that he drifts off in the middle of sentences sometimes; _But other than that he’s a handsome dragon. Skinny, though._ And she bends her head around to lick absently at a rough spot on her shoulder while Mirrim ducks around to oil it, hiding her blush from Alaine. The stocky green turns her leg from side to side, stretching out her talons and looking at each one carefully, and Mirrim thinks she looks brighter than usual and no. 

No. 

The other bathing stall is, suddenly, very quiet. 

“Oh,” says Alaine, softly. Mirrim’s hands knot into fists and she thumps Path in the ribs, hard and despairing. Path ignores her, extends one wing, then the other. _Please don’t, please,_ she thinks at her but she is being _ignored_ , disregarded so thoroughly that it aches, and Mirrim grabs at the elbow-joint, where the skin is thin. Tugs, and then twists. No reaction, and Alaine is saying, “Mirri, come away, we should get some distance from—we should let them go, there’s nothing you can do.”

The other woman looks grim but not panicked, not like Mirrim is panicked, and she’s staying several meters away, hands jammed hard into her pockets. Behind her Sayanth is shifting from foot to foot, crooning softly, his eyes whirling fast enough that it’s dizzying. 

“Come on.” Alaine says it very quietly. “Mirrim. Come on. This isn’t a safe place to be right now.”

Mirrim clenches her hands into her hair, goes to touch Path’s foreleg before thinking better of it, and finally takes a step back. And then another. A third. Her dragon sits back on her haunches, tipping her head this way and that, staring up at the sky as if planning a route. The blue watches her closely, all four legs still on the ground; Mirrim takes another step. Path tenses, as if to spring, and then relaxes back down. Tenses again. Settles. The tension of it is almost unbearable, and Mirrim makes herself keep backing up.

Path leaps.

Mirrim’s back slams into Alaine’s shoulder. Sayanth lunges forward and up, almost as if the contact was permission, and then Alaine is saying, half-frantic, “Mirrim, if you don’t want—I know you’re not, that you like men—you should get away from me—”

“Not what?” Mirrim is swaying with the force of Path’s need, feet spread wide apart, why hadn’t anyone _warned_ her? 

“Not—” Alaine gestures, frustrated; she can see it out of the corner of her eye, see the tight control in the woman’s wrists and shoulders. “Not inverted. Not like me. Shards, Mirrim! You can’t not _know!”_

Mirrim turns, blinking, and she reaches for Alaine, for her upper arms, to hold her, to gentle her, to do—something. Anything. Touch skin to skin, feel warmth and contact, intimacy, and she is so aware of Alaine’s mouth—

Alaine jerks away, holding up her hands. 

“Don’t do this to me,” she says and why does she sound so shattered? Like a dud egg broken open? “Mirrim, I want—not like this, Mirri, _please.”_

The woman presses a hand over her mouth, the other still upheld, presses and drops it like she is brushing something away. Mirrim steps forward; Alaine’s palm meets her chest for an instant before she pulls it back. Both of them are half-aware of their dragons, Sayanth trailing behind Path, and Mirrim is just about to curl her fingers around Alaine’s wrist when Alaine says, “Wait—wait, that’s S’con’s blue, and N’det’s brown—” 

She can almost feel the two dragons in the air behind hers, and before Mirrim can think she’s saying, “I don’t want, Alaine, don’t let them near me, I don’t want either of them, please—it’s not fair, I didn’t think about this—” 

They’re gripping each other’s hands now, common panic searing away whatever had been shimmering between, not quite defined. The fire-lizards flit above them, cheeping. Mirrim can see the white all around Alaine’s eyes, like a spooked runner, and the words are spilling out of her mouth like a waterfall; Mirrim only half hears her. 

“If they find us, it’s trouble for me, no one really minds if I don’t say or do anything, I don’t know what they were _thinking,_ sending me here with a female green rider—” Her hands smooth down Mirrim’s arms, then grip her wrists again. “—but I suppose the Weyrleader would rather an inversion be as far away from him as possible, and he _hates_ F’lar—”

“Alaine—”

“Listen,” she says, and lets go of Mirrim like it hurts her to do so. Mirrim makes a small noise, protest and panic; Alaine closes her and eyes and tilts her head back. “It’s okay, it’s _alright,_ you should—not your weyr, they might look for you—you know the little tunnel that overlooks the eggs, where the candidates go spy on them when they’re about to hatch? That’ll be safe enough—”

“Alone?” It comes out cracked, afraid. Path goes into a spiral upwards, roaring her pleasure in the chase, in being faster, in being _better._ Mirrim can hear voices, faint still but getting louder; men’s voices. 

“Mirrim.” Alaine’s voice is almost hoarse in her throat. “Mirrim, you don’t know what you’re asking, Sayanth is _going to catch her,_ look at him!”

 The words ring stark between them and Mirrim understands with a kind of horrified clarity. Both of them look up at once to see Sayanth cup air with his wings and surge forward. Path isn’t paying attention, too far gone in the gleeful glory of flight, and he’s gaining on her moment by moment. Mirrim drags her gaze back to Alaine, who pushes her away. She’s whispering as if it’s either whisper or scream. “Look. _Look._ Go, Mirrim. I’ll tell them I couldn’t find you, and if I’m lucky they won’t stay to rough me up, and anyway as soon as Sayanth manages it it won’t matter, but until he does—” 

Alaine reaches out and turns Mirrim towards the Hatching Grounds, delicately, so that her hands touch only fabric and not skin. She tries to turn back, tries to grab at her wrists, and Alaine just shakes her head, mute—Mirrim wants without direction, can feel Path wanting too, fierce and overpowering and triumphant. 

“Alaine.” 

“You don’t want me,” says Alaine, soft, strained, like she’s struggling not to cry. She makes a pushing-away motion, and Mirrim takes first one step, then another, towards the sands and the tunnels around them. “Really you don’t.” 

 

 

\---

 

Mirrim waits it out with her head between her knees, her breath shuddering as Sayanth’s claws catch Path, fingers digging into the back of her neck; Reppa nudges her little green nose beneath Mirrim’s armpit, keening softly. The stone leaves impressions on her back, even through wherhide. When Mirrim gets up she’s stiff, aching in every bone and muscle, and it takes a long time for her hands to relax. N’det is the first to see her, and lift an eyebrow, and ask if Alaine managed to track her down. There’s something lewd and fascinated beneath the question, and when she tells him no he looks almost disappointed. No one else asks. A green’s mating flight isn’t an event, when they don’t even clutch; Mirrim is fairly sure no one but those of them involved even _noticed._

She doesn’t see Alaine for three days. Sayanth she sees nearly every time Path needs tending to, so Mirrim keeps away from her dragon except for the required training flights, and that’s alright because they’re in different Wings, on different schedules—

—Mirrim misses her. The men are well enough; they treat her like a brother or a comrade, and not with the reserved deference they use with Kora, but she doesn’t have anything in common with them except for their dragons. They were all of them raised to this; out of the whole Wing only two didn’t have at least one dragonrider parent, and yes, Brekke had fostered Mirrim but that was a matter almost entirely separate. Mirrim had known nothing, and less than nothing, and so had Alaine, and.

And. 

And after dinner on the fourth day Mirrim goes looking. Alaine isn’t in her weyr, which isn’t surprising since Sayanth is out on the heights; but she isn’t tending to her gear or looking over the herdbeasts or sitting in the Hall listening to the Harper—and she hadn’t been at dinner. Path insists mildly that she hasn’t seen the woman, anywhere; and Sayanth is asleep and so she _can’t_ ask him, he needs to nap. The green dragon’s thoughts are colored with smugness, satiety, and Mirrim makes a face. 

Ten minutes later she gives up, and ten minutes after that she meets Alaine coming down the stairs from Mirrim’s weyr. Alaine (who had been frowning, attention turned inwards) stops dead, color rising in her cheekbones. 

“Oh—Mirrim, I—” 

“Are you alright?”

They speak at almost the same instant; Alaine breaks the ensuing silence first, not quite looking at Mirrim. “I’m fine. They were—surprisingly sympathetic, when I said you weren’t around. S’con looked relieved, even.” Her smile is small and forced, but real. “I don’t think he’s much of a fan of women.” 

It’s Mirrim’s turn to blush. To look a little away. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” 

Alaine makes an annoyed sound, raw and unplanned and very real, that makes Mirrim scrub a hand through her black curls and shuffle. “You’re weyrbred, of course you do. How do you think blue and green riders usually manage?”

“There are stand-ins,” says Mirrim, stiffly, and Alaine actually laughs. It’s a relief, hearing her unbend enough to laugh, and the tall woman relaxes just a bit. Alaine touches her forearm lightly, almost shy, and asks, “Could we go somewhere private? Only I think we need to talk about—about Sayanth and Path. And what happened. And what. Might happen, later.” 

“I.” Mirrim looks down at her hands, and she can feel the heat of Alaine’s fingertips for long seconds after they drop away. “You have a point. My weyr, then. We’re already mostly there, and the sun’s still on the heights for another hour so we won’t be interrupted. The fire-lizards are up there too.”

Something flashes across Alaine’s face—some mixture of fear or hope or doubt—and is gone. “If you like.”

Mirrim leads them up in silence, lights the little brazier in silence; it’s still warm out but the evenings are getting cooler, and without Path the space needs the extra help. She’s not used to guests—hasn’t had any except Brekke, who didn’t stay—so after a long moment of internal argument, Mirrim sits on the bed, leaning against the wall, and gestures for Alaine to join her. There’s an even longer pause from Alaine, but she clambers over the furs after a few beats, puts her back to the stone, and stretches out her legs to dangle over the edge of the bed. 

There is a perfectly respectable distance between them, more than a full arm’s length, and still Mirrim has to knot her hands together in her lap to keep from reaching for Alaine. She doesn’t know why. It would be easy, to blame it on Path—

“I thought he’d get _over_ it,” Alaine is saying, exasperated. “He’s being a numbwit, I know, but he keeps going off and sulking whenever I tell him to come away.” Her fingers move in small frustrated arcs, smoothing down her thighs before returning to grip opposite wrists. “I thought it would be over, after the mating flight. I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable longer than you had to, you’re my friend, and you’re not like me—”

“I don’t understand.” 

“I want you.” Alaine’s voice is naked, stripped bare. “I have for a Turn now. And then I got—Shards, I got the chance to _have_ you, but I wouldn’t, Mirri, not like that, and I can put in to leave Benden now that you know, I won’t risk Sayanth going after Path the next time she rises.” Her shoulders are bowed in, head hunched between them, chin pressed nearly to her chest. Mirrim stares at her, helpless. 

Puts out a hand. 

“Don’t,” says Alaine, and she sounds so miserable that Mirrim stops, pulls back. “You’re indulging me, and that’s. I don’t want to push you into anything just because we’re—friends, I know perfectly well you like men, I’m not a moron, I don’t want you to _pretend.”_ She takes a shaky breath, goes on so fast her words fall over each other. “So you know, and that’s alright, and Sayanth has his growth now so we don’t have to worry as much about being bullied, and they’re building that new Weyr, Hon-something, so I can just—”

“Alaine!”

They are both trembling into the silence. Then Mirrim shifts her weight, changes position so that she’s facing Alaine instead of both of them just staring at the opposite wall. “I don’t want you to,” she says, softly. “Al, I don’t. Did I tell you I wanted you to leave?”

Alaine shakes her head, hands clenched in her lap. Mirrim swallows, jerkily, and lays the tips of her fingers over Alaine’s fists. It feels like a shock from furs in the winter, current jumping skin to skin. From the way the other woman’s eyes go wide Mirrim knows it’s not just her, that they are both stirred and moved by it. 

“So there’s no reason to.” Mirrim cautiously folds her fingers over Alaine’s, which are loosening, revealing little half-moon dents in her palms where her nails have dug in. “Three days not knowing where you were or if I’d done something was enough, if you go I’ll... I’m all by myself here, if you go.” She strokes over the dents, gently, and over the lifelines and fatelines and the joints of Alaine’s fingers, not looking at her face. Alaine makes a small noise, halfway between gasp and sob, and shifts a little on the furs. Mirrim has to work not to look up, but she thinks if she looks up she’ll lose her nerve, so instead she dips her head and presses her mouth to Alaine’s palm in a clumsy kiss.

Mirrim has never kissed anyone older than three or younger than sixty and it’s like the dry-fur shock all over again, so that she’s trembling with her lips against skin that smells of wherhide and oil and dragons. Alaine’s hand is in her hair. Alaine is saying, almost panicked, “Mirri—Mirri, you _can’t_ be, someone would have told me by now—”

She giggles, just short of hysteria, and then says, “They would have had to know.” Mirrim kisses Alaine’s palm again, and the woman catches her breath once, twice. “ _I_ would have had to know.”

Alaine pets at her hair, shyly, and then less so, running her hand over Mirrim’s braid and then over her neck, lingering there with her fingertips against the bones of her spine. They are both struggling to keep steady, to not do something they’ll regret; it’s desperately clear how badly Alaine wants to slide her hand under the collar of Mirrim’s shirt, how carefully she’s holding herself back. 

“Do you want,” says Alaine, and stops there, and bends until her mouth is just barely brushing the top of Mirrim’s head, breathing her in. “I. Mirri. Can I.”

Mirrim kisses the other woman’s palm again, then swallows hard and looks up, finally meeting Alaine’s eyes, nearly bumping into her as she does. “You can. Shards, Alaine, of course you can, I wish you had three days ago—”

Alaine leans forward, one hand coming up to splay against the line of Mirrim’s jaw to hold her close—and it’s terrifying, exhilarating, and she’s always known but she’s rarely _done_ anything about it before, and Mirrim’s mouth is sweet. There’s no distance between them, suddenly. Shoulders pressed close, collarbones knocking together, Mirrim’s hands fumbling at the hem of Alaine’s shirt, both of them on their knees.  

“I don’t know how,” gasps Mirrim and Alaine laughs into her open lips, giddy, and says, “Neither do I, not really,” so they settle for struggling out of breastbands and shirts until finally they are skin to skin. Alaine is shockingly pale beneath her leathers. Mirrim wants to put her mouth against the woman’s stomach, the delicate rise of her ribs, the point of her nipple; tongue the freckles scattered across her sternum until both of them are dizzy. She is already dizzy. So she half-closes her eyes against the spinning and licks a line that follows the curve of Alaine’s breasts, which are small, just the right size for Mirrim to hold in her hand, which she does. Alaine is nearly silent, reduced to soft noises against Mirrim’s hair, her neck, her lips. 

Mirrim pushes her back, gently, until Alaine is lying full length on the furs; waits with her nose in the crook of Alaine’s neck until she has her breath back. When square hands come up to curl against Mirrim’s hips, the tall woman relaxes, and says, “I’m going to lock the door. I want—is that alright?—I want to see you.” She swallows, makes a small gesture. “All of you. Alaine. Can I?”

Alaine nods, sitting up a little on her elbows as Mirrim moves with a kind of half-drunk speed towards the entryway, watching the way her hips swing. They’re both calmer by the time Mirrim clambers back onto the bed; Alaine is already working loose the ties of her wherhide trousers.

The time before they’re both mother-naked is short. Mirrim has to fight the urge to draw up her knees—Alaine’s eyes are so plainly drinking her in like a man too long _between_ drinks in sunshine—until she realizes she is staring too, desperate, feeling again like she felt just before Path allowed herself to be caught, and oh, she wants. Wants like a brushfire, like a flamethrower, like a dragon. 

“You’re handsome as anything, you know that?” Alaine reaches out, wondering, traces the sharp arch of Mirrim’s hip. “Just. Look at you. I want—all of you.”

“Have me then.” Mirrim catches her wrist, presses Alaine’s palm to her skin, draws it up until it’s cupped over her breast. Again that shock, sweeter every time. Alaine brushes her thumb over it, and she’s finally starting to smile, like she believes what’s happening. She brings up her other hand to curl into Mirrim’s hair, drawing her closer, swallowing down a small noise when their bare bodies touch. Mirrim presses kisses along Alaine’s collarbone, still awkward but less hesitant, now. Their knees are interlocked. For a moment it’s just the slide and ebb of skin against skin, breath on neck and shoulder, hands roaming; and then Alaine leans back, drawing Mirrim with her—until they are both sprawled on the furs. 

“Do you want—” starts Alaine.

“Al, yes, _anything.”_ Mirrim rolls her hips, grinding down onto her; Alaine works her thigh up between Mirrim’s, and she can _feel_ the heat of her, the soft scrape of hair, how wet she already is. She has to close her eyes for a moment. It’s as good as Impressing Sayanth. Better, because there is no one else around to try and reverse it, no hands dragging her away. Mirrim groans open-mouthed against her neck. Alaine slides her hand down between them to cup herself, to press two fingers just a _little_ further until she’s fucking herself as Mirrim does the same. Her other arm winds around the woman’s back, anchoring her—anchoring them both, because this is impossible, insane, _intoxicating_ —

“Let me,” gasps Mirrim, “Shards, Alaine, let me touch you, I want to—I want you to touch me, please, _please—_ ” She cuts off with a gasp, and licks at Alaine’s neck, and then sinks her teeth into her skin, lightly. Alaine flushes, shoulders curling in, and says, “I. You don’t have to, it’s alright, I can just fuck you, that’s all I wanted, Mirri, I didn’t.” She has to stop again and moan, because Mirrim is pressing down on her again. Her thin face is almost fierce. 

“Don’t be stupid, Al,” and she pets at Alaine’s hair, her chest. Alaine laughs, rough, and buries her face into Mirrim’s shoulder so she that she can’t see or smell anything but the other woman, and eases her hand up a little, and over. Curls her fingers until they touch Mirrim at the softest point. 

“Oh. Please.” Mirrim’s voice is almost conversational. “Alaine, there. That’s. Can you? Harder? And. In me. If you can. If. You want.” The rhythm of her speech rises and fall as Alaine’s fingers stroke between her legs; Alaine can feel the slight hardening of her clit, the wetness sliding down her palm. 

“Course I want.” Alaine’s words are muffled and low; Mirrim’s hair is in her mouth, she can taste the clean-leather scent of her. Mirrim who is trembling now, hips jerking, gasping Alaine’s name over and over as Alaine stretches a little, slips two fingers into her. She’s warm—more than warm, hot enough to run threads of warmth up Alaine’s arm, down her chest and into her groin. Her whole body tightens with that heat; she can feel sweat at the small of her back. Beneath her breasts, the hollow of her belly, until she and Mirrim are sliding against each other, easy and smooth. 

And Mirrim’s hand is on her. 

Alaine’s hips arch up and then she is still, almost frozen. It’s so much. It’s not enough. 

“Please don’t stop,” murmurs Mirrim, and that’s what brings her back into her mind, lets her start pushing into the other woman again, feel that motion echoed on her own body. Mirrim is hesitant, is clearly unsure, so Alaine makes a soft sound and nudges her nose into the other’s jawline, fond and encouraging. There’s a soft laugh into her neck, and Mirrim’s muscles ease. 

“There, then.” Alaine mouths her ear as they rock against each other, liquid and slow. “Just like that. You can. If you want, you—you can put a finger in. I. I’d like that—”

Mirrim pulls back a little and Alaine shrinks against the bed, worried that she’s finally gone a step too far, but the thin woman is grinning, almost giddy, and she says, “Al, don’t worry, alright? I just want to look at you, I want to see your face when I.” She licks her lips. “When I fuck you.”

“Oh—” Alaine puts her free hand against Mirrim’s cheek, feeling the heat of it. “By the Egg, _yes.”_

Mirrim’s whole face lights up and she bends her neck so she can look down at where their fingers are curling against each other. The air is thrumming between them, and Mirrim begins to stroke her thumb over Alaine’s clit, in long sweeps, and Alaine twists her hips at the end of each one, desperate and hard. Mirrim dips her head and drags her tongue over one of Alaine’s nipples, then the other; she looks hungry and delighted. A few more strokes of her thumb and Alaine makes a pleading sound; Mirrim laughs, and presses at her until she can slide two fingers in up past the second knuckle. 

“Mirri.” Alaine’s hands clutch, one against Mirrim’s hair and one inside her; Mirrim bears down onto Alaine’s fingers even as she twists hers, flexes them until the stocky woman is panting. There’s heat all through her again but this time it starts from where Mirrim is buried in her and radiates upwards, making her tense and relax and tense again, until all of her is singing with it. Until she can hardly bear it any longer.

“Oh look at you,” breathes Mirrim as Alaine pulses around her, body pressing up and up, muscles twitching. “I never thought. Alaine. You glory, you dragon in flight—”

Alaine doesn’t know her eyes have been closed until she opens them at that, to see Mirrim fierce and triumphant above her, still rocking on Alaine’s curled fingers. She grins, and Alaine grins back, and leans into Mirrim’s body, the tight wet warmth of her cunt. Mirrim’s eyelids flicker, and she pulls out of Alaine so she can lean on both elbows, forehead resting on Alaine’s collarbone, breath soft against her skin. When she comes it’s with a little half-gasp—but it’s Alaine who moans with it, because there’s a sudden rush of wetness against palm and wrist. Mirrim tries to squirm away, saying, “Sorry, Al, sorry, let me get a cloth—” but Alaine holds her close, kisses the line of her jaw, the corner of her mouth, licks at her lower lip. 

“Sweet thing,” she murmurs, and Mirrim stops struggling, melting down against Alaine. She props her chin on Alaine’s chest, looking at her from the corner of one eye, and asks, “You don’t mind?”

“It’s a compliment.” Alaine smoothes her hands lazily down Mirrim’s back, feeling the delicate rise of her ribs, and the little doubled dent just above her ass, the sharp angles of her shoulderblades. Mirrim stretches, and Alaine is so deeply aware of all the places that their skins touch. “So you’re alright with this? It’s not just because of Sayanth being a—”

“Yes.” Mirrim rolls off her a little, so that one hip is against the furs and the other leg slung over Alaine, knee crooked; her fingers trace little patterns against Alaine’s breastbone. “I want this. You. I didn’t even _realize—”_

Alaine is reaching up to cover Mirrim’s hand with her own, breathing in the smell of their bodies and of sex, when there’s the noise of wings just outside. She jumps a little and Mirrim laughs, soft, and says, “They had to slow up sometime, Alaine,” just as Path settles onto the ledge visible from the bed. Sayanth backwings into position behind her, claws scrabbling at the stone until she moves into her sleeping space to make space for him. Both of their eyes whirl slow greenish-blue, and they are thrumming loud enough to shake the bed, even from a half-length away _._ The fire-lizards burst in above their heads, caroling, brown Tolly, green Reppa and Lok, and the dragons hum louder still. All of them are bright with pleasure. 

“Hush, oh, hush,” says Alaine, sitting up. “Do you want the whole Weyr to know what we’re about?”

There’s a long expectant pause, as the fire-lizards and dragons all tilt their heads. Then Mirrim, with an unreadable look on her face, turns to her and says, slow and proud—and, Alaine thinks, terribly brave—

“It might be an idea.”


End file.
